About Me

Saturday, October 30, 2010

Well, right on schedule, less than a month after starting day care, our cutie came down with an ear infection. Actually, it should be "ear infectionS", since he has it in both ears.

The cutie has had colds before, but never an ear infection. The first time he had a cold, we were so nervous, but with each succeeding time, I became more and more blase. I would worry that maybe he felt warm, take his temperature, and find that he was perfectly normal, not to mention annoyed that I had interrupted whatever he was doing. My son is very focused; don't get between him and the music table. I became convinced that I would know when he had a fever; I wouldn't just think he was warm, I'd know he was warm.

Yeah, well, I didn't. Yes, he was mildly fussy and clingy, but he has been for a couple of weeks now, so I didn't think anything of it. Yes, he had a cold, but he'd had it for four or five days, and he's had colds before. Then on Tuesday evening, my sweetie said, as we were putting him to bed, "Does he feel warm to you?" Since the cutie was already going to bed, we didn't want to disturb him by taking his temperature. On Wednesday, I forgot, until my sweetie came home from work and said again, "Does he feel warm to you?" His temperature was 101.5.

I freaked out. The doctor's office was already closed, but I called, and talked to a nurse, who talked me off the ledge and told me to give him Tylenol. By the next day, he was at 102, and no longer "mildly" fussy. He was crying continually and refusing to eat--he'd put food in his mouth, then spit it out (or pull it out with his hands). We took him to the doctor, and found out about the ear infection. Poor cutie--his throat was probably too sore to swallow. (Although, oddly enough, he seemed to have no trouble swallowing cookies.)

And I had had no idea. I felt terrible. So much for mother's intuition!

Thursday was awful; by fortunate coincidence, my sweetie had taken that day off; needless to say, he did not do any of the things he had planned to do with his day off. Instead, he held our cutie all day while he cried. The cutie was better yesterday, and almost back to his old self today. He has suffered no permanent damage (yet) from my obliviousness.

We are giving him a pink liquid antibiotic which is exactly the same as it was when I was a kid. Smelling it took me back to my childhood, when we frequently had one of these pink bottles in our fridge. I haven't tasted our cutie's, but I know exactly what it tastes like. He doesn't know yet that it tastes awful; he just thinks it's sweet. He points at the infant Tylenol like it's candy. Doubtless this has been an adventure for him--he gets held all day! And eats sweet liquids in bright colors! Not to mention cookies! And he's acquired several new toys!--but *I* am very glad it seems to be winding down, and we have all managed to survive, even if only barely.

Thursday, October 14, 2010

I actually went to Costco and bought a sheet cake (which, alas, I failed to take a picture of). Well, I guess technically it was a layer cake, since the sheet was cut in half, doubled up, and filled with "2 LBS OF CREAM CHEESE FILLING" according to the label. The whole thing swathed in sugary frosting and decorated with a blue dinosaur and our cutie's name.

The thing about the cake, though, is that while it was cheap ($17!) and actually pretty good, it was also about twice as much cake as we needed. So that leftover half a cake sat in our fridge, getting picked at and picked at by my sweetie and me, until we were both heartily sick of it. Not to mention weirded out by the fact that a) we were eating cake every day and b) after a week and a half, it still hadn't gone bad.

So there I was, staring at a quarter of a cake,wondering if I could make myself throw it away. I have a real problem throwing away perfectly good food, even if it is questionable as to whether it is "food" and definite that it is not "good food."

Then I remembered Bakerella. I have been mysteriously obsessed with her cake pops for some time, but I knew I would never bake a cake just to turn it into cake pops. But here I was, with a quarter of a sheet cake and 1/2 LB OF CREAM CHEESE FILLING. How could I resist?

So, I scraped off the sugary frosting and mashed up the cake and filling:

Then shaped my cake balls.

Here's the tricky part: Do not use chocolate chips to coat them. I did not have any semisweet chocolate in the house, so I thought I could make do with chips. No. Chocolate chips "melt" into sticky goo, which is delightful in a cookie but horrendous for smoothly coating anything. The balls I coated in melted chocolate chips were stringy hairy messes. I'd show you a picture but...my sweetie ate them.

Ahem! Anyway, here are some of the finished ones, coated in nice Ghirardelli chocolate, after a quick run to the store:

Technically, these are cake balls, not pops, since they don't have sticks, but whatever. They are yummy.

And yes, I am fully aware that, even though I just made them yesterday, they are still 2-week-old cake. And we are still eating cake every day. Shut up.

Friday, October 08, 2010

It's been a whirlwind week and a half of changes. Last week, my sweetie's parents came for a visit, so we left the cutie with them for a day and took off, just the two of us.

Change #1: It was my very first night away from our cutie since the day he was born.

Here is the deep Jacuzzi tub in our room at the Wild Iris B&B. I had not had a bath since I became pregnant, so I was obsessing over it. It was as lovely as I had anticipated.

When we returned the next day, our cutie barely acknowledged us. I would say he didn't even notice we had been gone. I was both sad and proud: he is really an easygoing baby.

My mom also came to visit. Why?

Change #2: It was our cutie's birthday!

We are now the proud parents of a one-year-old. We had a very nice party for him, and he actually seemed to enjoy it very much. He loved being the center of attention, and he ate an entire piece of cake--probably more sugar in one go than he had had in his entire previous life. How could he not have fun? The next day, though, he was tired and very clingy: he wanted mom, and no one else. I think after the party, not to mention several days of Nana putting him to bed and giving him baths, he was missing his usual routine.

For non-baby-owners, the seat is convertible because it can switch from rear-facing to forward-facing as the child grows. He will probably be in this seat for the next three or four years. No longer can I take him out of the car, seat and all: this seat stays in the car. I'll miss the convenience, especially when he falls asleep in the car, but it's probably just as well: lifting him in his (very heavy) infant seat was becoming increasingly difficult and my back was not happy.

Finally, the biggest of all, change #4: Today our cutie started day care. He will go two days a week, partly so I can have some life to myself, partly so that he can learn to play with other kids. This is a biggie. I had a very hard time dropping him off this morning. He, of course, barely noticed me leaving--he was too busy playing. I worry that he'll miss me, that the other kids will scare him, that he won't eat or nap, that he'll cry all day. Probably none of these thing will happen, or at least, not where he is :-). I, on the other hand, have been tiptoeing around the house as if he were in his room napping and then feeling sad when I realize he's not in the house at all. This is going to take some serious getting used to.

I feel like last week I had a baby and this week I have a little boy. I miss him already!